Men Are In Charge Because the Bible Says So
There’s alot of sexual tension in the Church and I’m not just talking about the youth group.
One obvious aspect of gender tension in the Church is the prejudice toward men in roles of authority. I was raised in a church grounded in a fundamentalist-leaning hermeneutic. Hence, high levels of leadership – pastoral position, adult teaching positions, eldership, board members – were reserved for men. This mantle of authority trickled down the hierarchical ladder to the family as well. Men were taught to be the “spiritual leaders” of their households and women were taught to be generally supportive and submissive. In my experience this is usually perceived to mean that, ideally, the man should be the initiator and director of the spiritual activities of the home and that all family business decisions are ultimately made by the husband. (Neither of these ideas has any grounding in biblical teaching or actual reality.)
In Pentecostal churches I observed more flexibility – women commonly operated in “prophetic” roles, and, less commonly in preaching roles, but typically were still instructed to defer to their husbands in matters of governance in church and the home. Even in mainline churches where women have been ordained for many years I’ve observed a kind of “lame duck” status for a woman pastors. One woman I know pastors a Methodist church in Ohio and her congregation largely ignores her attempts to lead. While it’s extremely difficult to separate her frustration from other factors – such as the culture of Methodist churches, the personality of that particular church, and the tendency of older congregations to resist change – she herself suspects her difficulties are due partly to gender bias.
One last example: My wife is on staff at a Jewish retirement community where the rabbi is a woman and she has observed similar tensions.
Let’s face it: the single greatest obstacle to gender barriers between men and women in churches is the Bible. Ancient scripture clearly reflects a traditional patriarchal culture – and by “patriarchy” I mean male dominance by excluding women from the seats of power through various means of force (shame, restriction from education, exclusion from property ownership, restriction from representation, and, of course, violence). Moreover, while biblical attitudes toward women may be relatively liberating (compared to the beliefs of their day), compared to Modern social mores they are clearly archaic. It does not help to pretend this isn’t so.
I think a difficult yet important question for Postmodern Christians is this: Is everything affirmed in the bible universally transcendent, or is scripture (like its authors) to some extent captive to the context in which it was formed? I’m convinced of the latter.
What are some of the gender tensions you’ve noticed in churches? How does the Bible help or hurt in these situations? How do you decide which attitudes and postures affirmed in scripture are universal and culturally transcendent, and how do you decide which are culturally-bound?
